Dancer Archive
Thread: Making Routines : Flourish Times
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KalineLessia
Thu Jan 27, 2005 8:54 am
#1
Why and How?
I've been meaning to do this for a while. Last night, my friend Nasoon asked me to help her make a dance routine. So, we spent some time dancing and working out the timing. However, it wasn't very exact, and this itched at me a little. It looked good, with the flourishes flowing into one another, but there were a few hiccups. This made me decide to spend some time and find out the closest-to-exact timing for flourishes as I could.
So, today I set up my little purple twi'lek in the cantina of the town she calls home, and started to experiment. I already had the rough timings from the previous night.
Using a very simple little line, I used the approximate timing, then merely increased or decreased the values, using a growing number of decimal places. By finding the point at which it went from making the next dance do a flourish to where it went into the base dance of the next one, I found the closest exact time of the flourish.
An example of the commands I used:
/changedance lyrical; /pause 5; /flo 1; /pause ##; /changedance exotic4
This changed from the dance I was using (exotic 4) to lyrical, gave it a pause to make sure that any previous flourishes were done and to account for lag, performed the flourish I was testing, paused for the time I was testing, then changed back to exotic 4. I would start off with a basic number (eg. 20), find the two between which it went fromone flourish straight into the other,to base dance, then narrowed it down.
The Numbers
I have started off with just the flourishes I like in the "slow" dances.
Formal:
1: 16.405
2: 15.943
3: 17.794
4: 13.678
2: 15.943
3: 17.794
4: 13.678
Lyrical:
1: 23.748
2: 21.799
3: 16.948
4: 20.806
2: 21.799
3: 16.948
4: 20.806
Exotic 2:
1: 14.346
2: 10.895
2: 10.895
Exotic 3:
1: 19.766
3: 20.604
3: 20.604
Exotic 4:
1: 31.131
2: 23.211
2: 23.211
How Can This Be Used?
Here are a few examples of how this data can be used.
To make a lyrical dance with the minimum of base dance:
/startdance lyrical; /flo 1; /pause 23.784; /flo 2; /pause 21.794; /flo 3; /pause 16.948; /flo 4; /pause 20.806; /stopdance
Although the last pause doesn't need to be as long, as it'll stop dancing whenever the flo has finished. The /start and /stop can be /changedance instead, to go from exotic to lyrical.
To put an exotic 3 flourish into exotic 2:
/startdance exotic2; /pause 5; /flo 1; /changedance exotic3; /pause 19.766; /changedance exotic2
To put a lyrical flourish into exotic 4:
/startdance exotic4; /pause 5; /flo 3; /changedance lyrical; /pause 16.948; /changedance exotic4
There are a lot of possibilities.
Special effects
By breaking up the times, it's easily possible to put special effects into routines as well. For example, taking the simple exotic 2/3 routine above. To get a spot light into the middle of it, break up the pause. Alternatively, just hotkey them and press at the right moments. 
Example:
/startdance exotic2; /pause 5; /flo 1; /changedance exotic3; /pause 10.766; /spotlight; /pause 9;/changedance exotic2
Notes
These times are correct for me, but lag sometimes gets in the way, so it's best not to do routines that are too long. I was at the end of testing when the servers went down, I'm going to test the routines I've posted and do exotic 4 once it comes back up. I might do the rest of the flourishes for the dances then work on other dances, but I need a rest after these! They aren't dreadfully difficult, just time consuming. If anyone else wants to test them and post it up, I'd be greatful. If I've made any mistakes, feel free to point them out. Times may vary slightly between different people, I'm not sure. It's probably fully possibly to be even more accurate, but I didn't feel up to going to any more decimal places!
Edit: Added Exotic 4 and tested the routines in there. All seem to be working.
Message Edited by KalineLessia on 01-27-2005 05:44 PM
Panthu
Fri Jan 28, 2005 5:41 am
#2
I wish this method was more stable. I spent a ton of time trying to break down flo times and points in a flo so I could macro mixed routines, but in the end I just gave up and went back to hand flo'd cues. It just made me insane that the same macro could sometimes hit marks beautifully and then miss them entirely the next pass.
Even with hand floing, you still can't be sure what others are seeing woefully. I'm pretty certain that the ultimate fix to our "broken" dances will be less reliance on synching up Dancer client, server, and Watcher client. Hopefully, the way that's eventually done will allow stored routines to be seen the same way by everyone, even if they don't see them at exactly the same time. *crosses fingers*
I'd also love to see a DP stored routine similar to crafter schematics that could be traded for "teaching" others your routines. If we were given that and some prompt to start all Dancers in a group on the same routine at the same time, we would look soooooo much better and could do so much more with mixing in a group. If we could mark variations of a routine as such, they could be started at the same time but Version A would be for the front chorus line and Version B for the back. Gah, we could do so much!
Eep! Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread with revampy ideas! Good research! Keep up the good work! 
KalineLessia
Fri Jan 28, 2005 6:36 am
#3
Panthu wrote:
Eep! Sorry, didn't mean to hijack your thread with revampy ideas! Good research! Keep up the good work!
Hehe, no worries, Panthu.
Yeah, it's not perfect. Sometimes the flos don't trigger properly and it just goes ugh. It's really just a base.
I had a bunch of ideas I wish we could do while I was working on this, too. I think what I'd most like is a /changeband dance command, that puts all the dancers at the same moment of the base dance.
LyteFoot
Fri Jan 28, 2005 6:59 am
#4
Yes you need a /changeTroup command. I think it would be so much easier for them to manage if they just sent the command list to each client and allowed the client to play it in it's own good time without trying to worry that every client across the world is in synch. How much damage will we do if player A sees our performance 3 seconds before player B. Seeing it well orchistrated is so much more important.
Sakura-Ikari
Fri Jan 28, 2005 1:25 pm
#5
this is the first time in MONTHS I've bookmarked a thread that was NOT an RP
thank you so much
i will admit i am entirely toooooo lazy to do this kind of testing
you rock!
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